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Het romance with reversed gender dynamics
Nov. 7th, 2011 12:27 pmI read a lot of romances and romance-centered stories. Unfortunately (for someone with my tastes) most of them conform to really rigid gender roles: the man is always older, taller, more powerful, domineering, etc, and this is often presented as Just The Way Gender Works (especially in urban fantasy, ug)
It is SO HARD to find m/f romances(*) where this is reversed, or at least mixed up a little. The few I have found are either (a)primarily about the man being sexually dominated (and either it's not very romantic, or outside the bedroom he's twice as domineering to make up for it) or (b)go so far in the other direction they hit one of my major squicks (anything resembling parent/child (including teacher/student), sexualisation of children, rapist as love interest)
Two types of stories with superficial similarities to what I want that leave a bad state in my mouth are "unwomanly woman is all broken inside, needs a real man to help her soften and become a real woman" aka Defrosting Ice Queen, and strong female characters who are powerful and out spoken but ultimately their badassery only exists to make the man who gets to win them look good. So, I'm avoiding those.
Thus! A list of stories I have enjoyed or at least found interesting. Be warned, this is definitely not a list of "romances with totally unproblematic and feminist gender dynamics", and I found some of them quite disturbing. It's also incredibly subjective.
All stories are long, well written, and have a central romantic plot about a man and a woman finding a happy ending together. Any other recs appreciated!
( Romances, not-so-romances, and gen )
It is SO HARD to find m/f romances(*) where this is reversed, or at least mixed up a little. The few I have found are either (a)primarily about the man being sexually dominated (and either it's not very romantic, or outside the bedroom he's twice as domineering to make up for it) or (b)go so far in the other direction they hit one of my major squicks (anything resembling parent/child (including teacher/student), sexualisation of children, rapist as love interest)
Two types of stories with superficial similarities to what I want that leave a bad state in my mouth are "unwomanly woman is all broken inside, needs a real man to help her soften and become a real woman" aka Defrosting Ice Queen, and strong female characters who are powerful and out spoken but ultimately their badassery only exists to make the man who gets to win them look good. So, I'm avoiding those.
Thus! A list of stories I have enjoyed or at least found interesting. Be warned, this is definitely not a list of "romances with totally unproblematic and feminist gender dynamics", and I found some of them quite disturbing. It's also incredibly subjective.
All stories are long, well written, and have a central romantic plot about a man and a woman finding a happy ending together. Any other recs appreciated!
( Romances, not-so-romances, and gen )
